Fifteen Candles
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day five hundred and eighty-nine: On Mike's fifteenth birthday, Tina wants to make sure he has a memorable day like she did.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 28th cycle. Now cycle 29!_

**TOP 16, TAKE 2: **_Okay so a couple cycles back, I did my second 'top of Glee at the moment' cycle. Now since I was still in university and such at the time, those were planned a while back, before the second half of the season every started. This made it that by the time that cycle rolled around I realized that some things had changed... Things were added, removed, bumped up... Point is it didn't really reflect where I was anymore. So I decided 'what the heck, I'll do another one ASAP!' And so here we are :) This is my revised Top 16 (of course I HAD to plan before the finale, so there are still a couple things missing like Samcedes, Unholy Trinity, etc, but let's assume they're there ;) They'll get some love in coming cycles ;)) So off we go!  
><strong>Coming in at number sixteen... <strong>_

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><p><strong>"Fifteen Candles"<br>15/14yo Mike/Tina  
>Chang Squared #9 (sequel to "So Many Changs") <strong>

There never really was any doubt to it. The moment she found out when his birthday was she knew she wanted to do something special for him. Sure, birthdays were special for anyone, but with them it was different. They had… well, they hadn't met, exactly, but really they had gotten to know each other for real and had taken the first steps to being together like they were now… on her fourteenth birthday. They'd seen each other, at the arcade, they'd played, and he'd gotten her ice cream, and then… he'd come after her… Even now she thought back to that day and it still made her smile. She wanted him to have that, to have a day he could just hang on to if ever he was sad, to boost him right back on his feet, just from thinking about her.

For a while she didn't know what to do. Everything seemed too big, too complicated, and just not able to show just what it was that she was trying to achieve. So far all she had settled on was that she wanted to have her mother show her how to make him a cake and…

It had taken her days not to find anything, but everything came to her in a flash. It was one of those things where she could feel all the ideas snaking through her mind, and she needed to hurry and find pen and paper or else it would slither out and never be found again. So she got her paper, got her pen, and she got to work, scribbling everything. When she was done, she knew exactly what she was going to do… and she beamed with anticipation.

The day of Mike's birthday, she knew she would only have so much time to do this with him before he had to be home for his party, and still she found herself scrambling to make sure everything was where it had to be before she went and she met up with him, so much that when she got there, she was still wheezing and out of breath. He held on to her arms like he was afraid she'd hyperventilate herself into unconsciousness.

"Easy, easy, are you okay?" he asked, and when she looked up she saw despite his concern, he was smiling… He was just happy to see her. "Hey," he officially greeted her, leaning in to kiss her.

"Happy birthday," she wished after she'd kissed him back. "Sorry it took so long."

"Don't worry about it, we've still got hours," he shrugged, not worried.

"Right! Well," she stood up straighter, offering her hand, which he took. "Follow me right this way, please?" she guided him.

"You're not going to blindfold me, are you?" he asked as they walked down the street from his house.

"No, trust me, that would actually get in the way. You're going to need your eyes," she revealed. He wasn't sure what that meant, but he wasn't going to argue. She took him toward the bus stop where he would wait in the morning, for the bus that would take him to school, the one they would meet on. At the bench, she got him to sit, and for a second it felt like she wanted to make sure he sat in exactly the right spot. When he did sit though, he felt… something. He got back up and found there was a small box wedged in the crack in the bench. It was a very thin, narrow and short box, and judging by the fact that it was covered with wrapping paper, he had to imagine it was for him.

"What's this?" he asked, reaching for a corner to tear.

"No, wait!" she stopped him. "Can't open it yet, you have to wait," she instructed, and he frowned, confused. She gave him an empty gift bag, which he took to mean was for the box he wasn't allowed to open yet. "I couldn't actually put it on the bus, since I couldn't tell which one I'd get, but just remember that was where it belonged." He had no idea what any of that was about, though he would later.

The bus came and they got on, riding it, of all places on a Saturday, to school. "What are you doing, we can't go in there," he told her, but she just smiled.

"Sure we can," she insisted, and as they reached the door he could see the janitor standing just inside. He opened the door for them and let them through. She laughed, seeing his face, but she kept on pulling him toward wherever it was that she meant to take him.

The first stop was the cafeteria. It felt weird being there, seeing it empty, completely still, the chairs up on the tables… Well, all but one table. The only one where the chairs were down was the one where they sat, every day, for lunch. And right there sitting on it was another box, the exact same size as the first, with the same polka dotted paper. He chuckled, still not too sure what was going on. They went up to the table, and he took the box. He looked at her, then guessed it had to go in the bag with the other.

There were a few more stops like this in the school. One at his locker, another out at the bleachers on the football field... Each time he found another box, identical to the first, and he added it to his bag. Then they just carried on right out of the school and back to the bus stop. She still wouldn't tell him what this was about, but he was starting to understand certain things… These places where she took him, they meant something… maybe not to most people, but to the two of them…

This seemed to fit the bill, as their next stop was the dance studio, the one where Tina had her lessons, and now where he had his lessons too, by her pointing him out to her teacher. He had never expected that it would come to mean so much more to him now. As they climbed up to the studio, Mike spotted another one of the small boxes just inside the door. The place was packed, with the Saturday morning classes, but they did stop to watch for a bit.

After they had left the studio, the next stop in Tina's box hunt took them to the video store, which they now came to almost every Friday, and then it was off to the mall. This seemed to be where most of the action took place. They made 'box stops' at the ice cream stand, the music store, the bookstore, the brand new Breadstix, the movie theater, the fountain, and then they arrived at the arcade. Maybe it was his understanding of – at least some of – what was going on, but just walking into the place made his heart leap, and he smiled at her… this was where it had started, on her birthday. Maybe the fact that it was that special was the reason why they picked up not one but two boxes there.

The first was at the platform for the dance game. As always they had to wait their turn, but when their turn did come, Mike had already spotted the box wedged in a crack. No one had taken it, probably because they hadn't noticed it. "Play like you can, okay? No taking it easy," she pointed her finger at him. He agreed, useless to say no… He won, of course, though she put up a great fight. The next stop happened without his noticing until he sat on the bench near the door, the one they'd sat at on her birthday, and he felt something in his back. He reached behind himself and caught the box. He looked at her before putting the box in the bag. He hadn't realized how they were starting to gather now… He'd lost count, and he had no idea how many more they would pick up.

There was just one more box, and it was waiting for them back at Mike's house, in the basement where they would usually watch their Friday night movies. Once she told him it was the last box, he had to ask. "Can I open them now?" he begged. She smirked.

"Come on," she led him back upstairs, to the dining room, where the cake she had made with her mother was waiting for them.

"Wow," he blinked. "Did you make that?" he asked, seeing the design of the frosting. She nodded, and then she patted his arm.

"Okay, open them." He emptied the bag out on the table and picked up the first box, ripping the paper off of it, opening it to find… a candle? As he stared at it, she took it from his fingers and planted it in the cake. Now he looked at the boxes, counted them off fast, and realized that counting the one he'd already opened, there were fifteen… like he was turning on that day. It finally made sense, all of it, and even if he probably wasn't getting them open in the order he had gotten them, with each box he opened he remembered one location they had visited that day, and he remembered why they mattered… The fountain where he'd chased after her, the bleachers where she had stood as she watched him play football… With each candle he got out of a box, she would take it and put it in the cake, soon forming a circle around it. When she got the last one, she lit the end, took it to each candle until all fifteen candles burned bright on that cake. "Make a wish," she instructed, and he looked at her, wondering if saying 'it already came true' would be too corny. It was kind of true though… what more could he possibly hope for? He had her, she had him… His life felt so much better for having her in it… He had gotten his wish…

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******

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><p><strong><strong><strong>PS: I'm going to work to find a way to make a list available of the various series, I just need to find a way to make the link available, since this site seems to have an issue with putting links to stuff ;)<strong>****


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